Take John 3:16 for instance: 'For God so loved the world, that he', what?, 'He gave his only begotten Son'. A lack of brotherly love proves an absence of eternal life, he gives us the illustration: Cain. How can we say the love of God abides in us? How often does it happen? So let's look at the first aspect that John deals with in verses 10 to 15, and it's simply this: a lack of brotherly love proves an absence of eternal life. Once in John 15:12 and once in John 15:17. That's the explanation for why he behaved in this way, why there was a lack of love. A loveless man is not only a lightless man, but he is a lifeless man - and ultimately the only conclusion you can come to is that a man without light and a man without love is a man who is lost! Our Favorite Verses from 1 John. If they see a stranger they take him home and are happy as though he were a real brother. Now, our natural spiritual state before we're converted is death. Now turn with me for a moment to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, to the great passage on love and its definition. Preach The Word. Then, as we have already mentioned, many are confused today and just see love as raw gratuitous lust. You see, when the Almighty God of heaven sees hate, do you know what He cries? AndrewBibleBee. I don't mean everybody in the world, but is there a general principle, because of the life that you live and the stand that you take as one of Christ's children, it hates you - that's a sign that you've got God's life in you! Love (Love, loveth, beloved) ,from the word agape, is mentioned 51 times in the Epistle of First John. If He is in us, He will manifest the love of God. 3. The Greek word that refers to the love of God, one of the kinds of love we are to have for people, is agape. David Jackman in his commentary, and with this I finish, speaks of one of the loveliest Christians he ever met, Dr Kenneth Moynihan was his name, and for years he was a missionary doctor in Rwanda. He referred to himself as "the elder" and is certainly the last apostle living at the time. John is likening it to murder, to butchery, to slaughter. The message of John is: if Jesus loved you enough to die for you, you ought to love your brothers enough to live for them! A loveless man, John is saying, is a lightless man - he can't see his way. - because lust is the seed of adultery, and hate and anger are the seed of murder. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Same words used in the Gospel of John, as life (15 times ), light (6 times),love (33 times), fellowship(4 times), know (38 times), darkness, world. Check out a brief profile of each John mentioned in the New Testament. That's what the Lord said to the Pharisees: 'Ye are of your father, the devil; and the works of your father ye will do'. A brother comes into the meeting, and he's in great need, and somebody pats him on the back and says: 'We'll pray for you brother, the Lord bless you, safe home'. If you possess things that give you life and sustenance, material possessions, worldly goods, but refuse to share them - the Authorised says 'shut up the bowels of compassion', and that is a literal translation because the bowels, the intestines were understood in the ancient world to be the seat of affections, the way we use the word 'heart' today. Then there are others who maybe wouldn't stretch their definition that far, but understand love as a sentimental sort of fluffy feeling that's akin to butterflies in the tummy - it's an emotion, purely, it is a tendency. January 2006 You hear people talking today about 'Falling in and out of love' - I don't believe you do either of those two things. I know it's free, but not at any price - forgive your brother, or you'll not be forgiven of God. The early church were renowned for their love. Where are we there? Now don't shoot me at the door, I'm only the messenger, this is God's word, take it or leave it! Also, the fact that 1 Corinthians 13 uses charity 9 times connects it … 1 John Cross Reference Questions. A lack of brotherly love proves the absence of eternal life. It … But how many of us practice it, and practice it like John is propounding? He does not envy, He does not boast, He is never proud. If this is something that you're holding onto, if it is a lifestyle of hate, you need to beware - why? I think there are few things today that have hurt the cause of Christ more than this very thing: jealousy, enviousness among God's people. But just as we were looking at last week, John is talking about those who commit sin and the word is 'a continuous habitual lifestyle of sin', and if you have a continual habitual grudge against some brother or sister in Christ, John says you need to beware. Here Paul outlines for us what this agape love really is, and he defines it, and that's the word for love that he uses here. Romans 5 and verse 8: 'God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us'. While self-preservation is the first law of physical life, self-sacrifice is the first law of the spiritual life. Do you know that God doesn't want to meet you with a grudge towards another brother, an unforgiveness in your soul - why don't you let us go away from here and tell the other brother deacon that you've forgiven him?'. 'He was of that wicked one', at the beginning of verse 12 we see, so there are two things that he is citing to us as an explanation for this lack of brotherly love in Cain's experience. A deacon in a church on one occasion had a grudge against another deacon - I don't know whether that ever happens or not these days - but he had even forgotten what the grudge was over. If you ask anybody why they work today, they'll say: 'It's to feed my family, my wife and my kids', but they don't even conceive that it is also to feed and supply the family of God - and it is! Now, probably none of us will ever be called to die for someone else, that's very rare these days - at least in Europe. Can I ask you tonight: do you know many people who would put their lives on the line for you? So we begin in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of this book with several core cardinal themes that John's going to take right throughout this book as threads, but each time he revisits it in this spiral he adds another aspect of truth to it or another application to it. John, the relative of the High Priest (see Acts 4:6) 3. * There is no single correct way to translate the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Bible manuscripts into English. So you can see how this great word, beautiful word, has been perverted in our day. This is what he said, I quote: 'They love one another. What this agape love is, and this agape love is the love of God that has been displayed and manifested for us in Christ, is the love that we ought to show to one another. The illustration is Cain, the explanation is his parentage - he was of the wicked one, his practices were wickedness - but thirdly he gives us, like every good preacher, an application. B. Of all the “loves” mentioned in the New Testament, love for the brethren is one of the most prominent (see, for example, John 13:34-35; 15:12, 13, 17; Romans 13:8; 1 Peter 1:22; 2:17; 4:8; 1 John 2-4). They said: 'Dear brother, you're not going to go into eternity with this grudge in your heart, are you? He gives us another illustration in contrast to that of Cain, and it is our blessed Lord Jesus. 5:13-15 My source is the Blue letter Bible. How many of us tonight can say, including me: 'Lord, let me live from day to day During one of the sessions Larry missed Pete, and at lunch he said: 'I missed you at 10 o'clock, it was a really good session'. A second application of how we can know we are truly a child of God is found in verse 14, the first part of it: 'We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren' - you love your brothers and your sisters in Christ. I don't know whether you've ever noticed, but the New Testament hardly ever mentions the love of God that it does not speak also, or at least the context speaks also of the cross of our Lord Jesus. Now what is it that gives the love of God at the cross its character? The Lord Jesus, remember, sat with His disciples one day and in John chapter 13 He said that He was giving them a commandment, verse 34: 'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another'. John Mark, traditionally the author of the Gospel of Mark. What John is saying to us again is that here is a test of whether you're a child of God: do you have this love toward your brothers and sisters? We ask the question: did Abel do something on him? It is primarily the element of self-sacrifice, that He is dying there for us, not for Himself, for us, for the undeserving, for the iniquitous, the transgressors, the sinful, those totally unworthy. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. You can know that you have eternal life, but it's hard to know as you observe the life of people who profess Christianity whether or not they really love their brothers and sisters. And 'smiting' certainly appears more than once, but certainly not more than 700 =). But a sure sign that you haven't is that you're going the whole way of the world, and they think you're it's best buddy. Twice in John 13:34 and once in John 13:35. Those who believe walk in the light and obey the commands of God, not the ways of the world (1 John 2:15-17). You see, this is not just the mark of one who is of the devil, to hate believers and to slay and murder believers, but it's the mark of this whole unbelieving world. After he died a poem of his was published, and it took the ninefold fruit of the Spirit from the book of Galatians that I mentioned to you at the beginning, and made them a kind of character study of the Lord Jesus - because that's what they are, they're the characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ within the Christian. Now right away we see that love is more than an airy fairy feeling, it is more an act of our will rather than a feeling. JOHN LESSON 1 We are about to begin study in the most spiritual book in all of the Bible, the Book of John. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Answer (1 of 7): Love may not be the most used word in the Bible. Not only did He lay down His human life here on earth, but we go back into the eternity of past and we see in Philippians 2 that here He comes from the right hand of God, and He lays aside the grasping at divine power. Question #112529. What was John doing on the Lord's day? Now I know how people react to these types of verses, they'll be saying to themselves: 'I've never shot anybody, or slit anybody's throat' - but what John's doing is he is echoing what the Lord Jesus has already taught in Matthew's gospel and chapter 5 at the Sermon on the Mount - which, incidentally, is as much for us as it is for anybody. Wonder not then that the serpentine world hates and hisses at you who belong to that seed of the woman that is to bruise the serpent's head'. Chapter 5 and verse 21: 'Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire'. There you have the theory and practice! The command "love one another" appears eleven times in the Bible, all in the New Testament. The command "love one another" appears eleven times in the Bible, all in the New Testament. This is serious stuff. The Greek god 'Eros' takes a personification of this concept, and 'Aphrodite' and many other pagan gods were personifications of this fleshly, lustful love. This verb means “I believe.” It is one of the great words in John’s Gospel. I might say: 'I love chocolate' - dropping a hint there! The true Christian, this is John's point, at that point would be content to suffer and even die rather than cause suffering or pain or death to his brethren. But this word 'love' is found fifty times within 1 John, and it's remarkable when you consider that 1 John is only a book of five short chapters - but this theme of love is found fifty times right across those five chapters. Ultimately what it was was rebellion towards God, God wanted an offering and Abel came God's way with a little slain lamb, and Cain came his own way with an offering from the fruit of the ground because he was a farmer. Temperance is love in harness, and under Christ's control, 1 John has been given to us to help us understand how to define love. That even when I kneel to pray If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you'. Now in Genesis 3 we have the story of how fellowship between God and man broke down, and then when we come to Genesis 4 we find that the offshoot of the fellowship between God and man breaking down is that man's fellowship with his fellow man breaks down, and Cain slays Abel. The table below gives some word counts for four popular versions of the Bible. Not only do its style, vocabulary, and themes strongly mirror the Gospel of John, but we also know 1 John is written by an eyewitness of Christ’s ministry (1 John 1:1-3). He learned about godly love from God, who Himself is love (1 John 4:8 1 John 4:8 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. It is not something that revolves around self or self-gratification, but at the very centre - and, ironically we could say, at the crux ('crux' is the Latin word for 'cross', of course) - there is self-sacrifice as the foundation of everything that can be described as love. w light and darkness (1 Jn. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. The supreme act of love, John says in John 15:13, 'Greater love hath no man than this, but that a man lays down his life for his friends'. But if we take all those definitions, modern definitions of love, we can see that there's a trend running right throughout them all, and it is simply this: that love in some shape or form is understood as being something that gives you self-gratification. Then Paul says: 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus'. It always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always perseveres. That believers could be envious and jealous of one another?' John is saying that where there is no love there is no life. "Love each other" appears four times in the Bible, all in the New Testament. Would you put your life on the line for someone else? To God, in His holy eyes, hate is the moral equivalent of the murderous act, hate is the embryo of murder. Jesus the very Son of the Living God coming to earth living as one of us and giving the ultimate sacrifice is about Gods Love for us. He uses it ninety-nine times out of the two hundred and forty-eight times that it appears in the New Testament (also ten times in 1 John). 'Murder!'. Now, we all know well John 3:16, 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son', and we've memorised that one - but one I'm sure you have never memorised, let alone exemplified, is 1 John 3:16: 'We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren'. Five times altogether, according to the New King James version: How many times does the word love appear in the standard New International Version Bible? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth". John says this ought not to be so, and whether it's a denominational envy, or jealousy, or hate, whether it's pastoral pride or Christian professional competitiveness, it ought not to be! 1 Rather you should have in your life the attributes of Christ: when He was reviled, He reviled not again. 1 John 4:16 - And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. The problem in Cain's heart was simply jealousy or envy, and someone has said it is the most destructive force in the world to be jealous or envious. Christians used to be arrested, and they were required to give up the names of their associate Christians, and if they didn't they would suffer and die. Let me live for others, button. John is saying the same: that if there is a similar lack of love, it's a sure sign that you do not have eternal life. Matthew Henry noted well in his commentary on this verse: 'The great serpent himself reigns as the god of this world. The word for love that we find in John's first epistle, and indeed many times right throughout the New Testament is the Greek word 'agape'. It doesn't mean that God is against sexual union, it just means the concept was totally depraved and perverted. Early Christians received the second epistle of John from the aged apostle in the latter quarter of the first century. [Read guidelines...]. Verse 17: 'Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?'. Because, just as the Lord Jesus said again in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 and verse 15, 'If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses'. The Emperor Hadrian of Rome, in the early second century, called a man called Aristides to the palace to have him describe what Christians really were like. Not a popular verse today! Maybe it's not the man next door, maybe it's the man or the woman in the next pew. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. Two Christians were at an evangelism conference on one occasion. I know they're portrayed as being doctrinal disputes, but most of the time they're just personality struggles fuelled by jealousy, fuelled by envy - and they're singing praise, one on one side of the church and one on the other, and they're sworn enemies as they praise to God with their tongues! Where in the bible does it mention that Jesus was a 'man of color'. 7. But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? It is vicarious, He lays His life down for us - 'huper' (sp?) We have an obligation to lay down our lives for the brothers, to meet known needs of our brothers, and thirdly and finally: we are to love in action rather than in words alone, verse 18, that's a sure sign that we are the children of God - without it we cannot be. But then there is the social test, and that is the one we're looking at tonight again, and that is that of love towards our brothers specifically in Christ - and our sisters of course - and indeed love that we are to show to all men. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. The apostle John was part of Jesus’ inner circle, one of the 12 disciples chosen by the Lord to walk and learn with Him during His time on earth. This sermon was delivered at The Iron Hall Assembly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Pastor David Legge. If we lived like that today, our Christianity, just like the early church, would be infectious, it would be contagious, it would explode, it would mushroom. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love one another! 1. Not only were they renowned for doctrinal purity, but early Christians were renowned for practical charity. Now agape love is divine love, it is the love of God, it is what God is in His essence. Don't miss part 11 of 1 John: 'Confident Christianity', ------------------------Back to Top e. Expressions such as eternal life, a new commandment, abide in Christ, walketh in darkness, that your joy may be full. John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Tonight we're looking again at this great subject of love, and of course this is an epistle to do with assurance and how we can know that we have fellowship with God and His Son Jesus Christ. Give us that love that is nothing but the love of Jesus, that when He is hated He says 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'. 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